This invention is concerned with a new and inventive sheet-supporting stand which may be used, for example, as an artist's easel, but which also can be used for other purposes, such as a music stand.
Artist's easels are traditionally relatively heavy, for stability in use, and therefore not easily carried by the user from one site of use to another. Music stands, by contrast, are all too often of a flimsy light-weight construction, precisely because they have to be carried around from one performance to another, and are notoriously unstable. The present invention provides a sheet-supporting stand which is inherently stable, sufficiently rigid that it is not easily damaged in transit, readily portable, and equally applicable to usage as an artist's easel or a music stand.
There is no readily apparent way, in the prior art, of overcoming the conflicting characteristics of these known constructions, still less of combining them into an article equally at home in either environment. The present invention accomplishes the latter goal. As will become apparent, the product made according to the present invention achieves quite the opposite of the results obtained from conventional stands.